Los Angeles mayoral candidate Eric Garcetti flip-flopped days before the March 5 primary election, embracing Parent Trigger, the dramatic law now spreading nationwide that lets disgusted parents take over bad schools through petition.<\/p>\n
On February 15, when L.A. Weekly pressed the five top mayoral candidates for their positions on Parent Trigger, Wendy Greuel, Jan Perry, Kevin James and Emanuel Pleitez backed it. Garcetti, who is getting campaign help from UTLA, the powerful teachers union that hates Parent Trigger, said he wasn’t ready to back the law. Apparently, he’s evolved.<\/p>\n
Garcetti changed his mind at an education summit sponsored by United Way of Greater Los Angeles, after L.A. Times columnist Jim Newton further pushed Garcetti on his position on the law.<\/p>\n
Most teachers unions see the Parent Trigger law as a threat to their longtime powers because it lets parents take charge of disastrous public schools if those parents can get enough signatures from other fed-up parents at the school.<\/p>\n
But it’s clear that parents want more power over anti-reform unions and school boards.<\/p>\n
Education reformers are now happy as punch about Garcetti’s change of mind, although some folks are skeptical about Garcetti’s eleventh-hour change of heart, L.A. School Report explains.<\/p>\n